The Department of Health shut down popular East Village Japanese spot Sushi Dojo and its Gansevoort Market satellite, Sushi Dojo Express, on Monday for ignoring previous orders for chefs to use gloves — which trumped the fact that its total 18 violation points wouldn’t normally be cause for closure. (Chef/partner David Bouhadana told me he hopes to reopen next week.)

Bare-hand work is necessary to master the myriad subtleties of creating great nigiri — a laborious and exacting art.

The “gloves on” rule is prompted by the simplistic notion that hand-to-fish-to-mouth can transfer bacteria or parasites. Yet there has been not one substantiated case of New York sushi lovers being infected.

Is it not amazing, given the alleged omnipresent threat, that emergency rooms are not filled with victims rushed by ambulance from the city’s thousands of sushi spots?

Just about everybody who knows anything about how sushi is prepared and served also insists that making chefs wear gloves in the interest of safety is dangerously counterproductive.

The use of gloves facilitates transfer of dirt and debris from many sources — the counter, implements, cash tips from customers. “Gloves pick up particulate matter, but a chef can’t see or feel it,” Rosenberg said.

He also points out that only bare-hands preparation allows a chef to evaluate a specimen’s freshness and other qualities that relate to safety. “Gloved hands create a filter that renders this touch exam ineffective,” he says.

“In addition to a sense of smell, taste, and fat content, they must feel the fish with bare hands to determine whether the deeper flesh shows signs of not being fresh,” Rosenberg said.

An equally stupid gloves-on rule in California was thrown out by the state’s legislature last year.

A pity that we need to learn from the land of hot tubs. New York’s health tyrants need to wake up and smell the soy and ginger.